


Fall Out Boy and Mistletoe

by Cinnamonbookworm



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: High School AU, M/M, christmas party au, pansexual drew, pjogiftexchange
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-18
Updated: 2014-12-18
Packaged: 2018-03-02 00:18:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2792906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cinnamonbookworm/pseuds/Cinnamonbookworm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is an AU. A good, old fashioned high school Christmas party AU. This is also a gift for elfnico on tumblr for the pjogiftexchange.<br/>Will Solace wants to ask Nico DiAngelo to Drew Tanaka's Christmas party.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fall Out Boy and Mistletoe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elfnico](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=elfnico).



> this is an au. a good old-fashioned high school au. it is also my first solangelo fic so just bear with me here as i try to navigate them in that good old fashioned cliche christmas party high school au fic that everybody loves.

 

He’s sitting next to Kayla on the bleachers at lunch when she asks him if he’s going to Drew’s party with anyone. She says _anyone_ like she actually means _someone_ and like he should know who that _someone_ is, but he doesn’t.

(Well, he’s pretty sure he doesn’t.)

Because even though his sister can read him pretty well, there’s no way she knows about his new lab partner. His moody, half-asleep lab partner with the bags under his eyes and the various oversized black t-shirts from bands that were super popular back in 2007 but aren’t really anymore. His lab partner who falls asleep in class so often that Will has often ended up doing the labs by himself and letting the other boy copy them later.

There’s no way Kayla knows about Nico DiAngelo.

Who just happens to be under said bleachers as they speak, probably not knowing that his black headphones are not doing a great job of directing his 2007-era punk music to his ears alone, and that everyone who sits this side of the football field can vaguely make out the lyrics to Fall Out Boy’s “This Ain’t a Scene, It’s an Arms Race.” (Although, now that he thinks about it, she is smirking and looking below the bleachers, following Will’s gaze to where the Italian boy sits.)

He decides to play it cool. “I don’t know, I was thinking of going with Drew.”

Kayla nearly spits out the water that she was drinking. His timing could not have been more perfect.

“You wouldn’t dare!” She teases, knowing full well that neither he nor Drew are (how do you say) exactly interested in each other. Kayla’s brown eyes are lit up in amusement at the thought, and then her face suddenly becomes serious again. “No, seriously, though, who do you want to go to her party with?”

This time, her glance to below the bleachers is a bit too obvious for his liking.

“You’re asking that like he would say yes.”

“I have a source who says he would.”

“And _who_ exactly is this source?”

“My intuition.”

“I’ll ask him if you get over yourself and ask Jacob.”

Judging from the way that Kayla’s caramel skin crinkles between her eyebrows at the thought of asking some prep, from Optimus Academy, no less, to a party filled mostly with students from Delphi High. ( _He’s so pretentious_ she’d protested, _it’s like he thinks he’s a goddamn gift to the world or something_.) ( _Funny_ , he’d responded, _that reminds me of some hipster girl I know who thinks her taste in music is a gift to the world or something_.)

Kayla shoves him. He almost falls off the bleachers to the spot where Nico is sitting, still listening to his music too loud. He almost wishes he had. He almost wishes the other boy wasn’t listening to music and had heard the whole conversation. Almost.

***

Kayla doesn’t end up asking Jacob to the party, so Will ends up not asking Nico. He’s slightly disappointed.

Not that he doesn’t think about it though. He thinks about asking him a lot.

He thinks about it when, later that week, Nico stumbles into the nurse’s office during lunch time, where Will has been volunteering twice a week, with a bloodied lip and a black eye. And - get this - Percy _fucking_ Jackson is right behind him, looking frantic and worried as hell. Last Will had heard, the skater was dating Annabeth Chase, and they were committed. Very committed. (Like shove-your-tongue-down-each-other’s-throats-in-the-middle-of-gym-class committed). And Will hadn’t heard about a breakup, but he wasn’t exactly in the in-crowd with these sort of things, and if Nico wanted to date Jackson, well, he could do a lot worse. ( _Or a lot better_ , he thinks, _like great-taste-in-music, blonde-haired guitar player Will Solace better_ ).

He doesn’t say any of this out loud though, just rushes to Nico’s side, pretending not to be bothered by the way Percy Jackson is looking at the other boy as if he’s about to break into a million pieces.

“I don’t know what happened.” Percy stutters out, obviously more in shock than the boy who is actually bleeding. “One second he’s brooding in the corner and the next… well… look at him!”

“I’m _fine_ , Percy.” Nico protests, and it’s one of the first times Will has ever heard him talk. “You don’t need to hover over me like this. It’s just a little blood.”

“You _definitely_ need to lay down.” He finds himself saying before his brain has fully processed the beauty that is Nico DiAngelo’s voice. And then he is pushing Nico’s hair away from his forehead, like he’d imagined doing many times under very different circumstances to check out a dark purple bruise right along his hairline. “Christ, Nico, how hard were you hit?”

“I’m fine!” Nico protests once again, but then his eyes glaze over and he starts to slump. Once again, Will finds himself doing something he’d imagined under different circumstances, and holding the bleeding boy in his arms.

Immediately, Percy rushes even closer, now on Will’s side. “What’s wrong with him?” He asks, panic filling his voice.

“Calm down, it’s fine. He’s just passed out. He should probably get this checked out by someone who’s more qualified…”

“He can’t.” The green-eyed boy blurts out, and then grimaces, as if he shouldn’t say what he just did. “He… his family’s not exactly in a good place right now. A doctor’s visit isn’t exactly in their bank account right now. I promised his sister Bianca I’d look out for him when she went off to boarding school…. I’m not doing as good of a job as I want to.” Percy looks down at the floor, and Will suddenly doesn’t see the smart-alec, slightly jackass skater who mouths off teachers and has been caught graffitiing the lockers with Piper McLean on more than one occasion, he just sees someone who is looking out for his friend.

They’re just friends.

“It’s a good thing I’m trained in basic first-aid, then.” Will tells him. They lay Nico back on one of the chairs in the room. “So… are you and Annabeth going to Drew’s Christmas party?”

Percy’s smile at his girlfriend’s name makes him look more like a giant goofball than a brooding skater.

Will doesn’t ask Nico because Percy’s in the room, and the look in Nico’s eyes when he looks at Percy is enough to make him think he doesn’t stand a chance. (Not that his heart doesn’t almost stop beating when the boy he doesn’t stand a chance with gives him a small _thanks_ ).

***

So, he doesn’t end up asking Nico, but somehow, he ends up showing up anyways, and Will finds him brooding in a corner, still listening to his music too loud.

He finds his courage and walks over to him.

“Do you ever take those off?” He mumbles to himself, more a question than anything else, as he smiles and shakes his head, because there’s no way Nico can hear him.

Yet, to his amazement, the boy with the chocolate eyes that Will could get lost in looks up, and scrambles to take the headphones off. “What did you say?”

He can practically hear his heart beating in his chest. “You do know everyone within a ten-foot radius can hear Thnks fr th Mmrs practically belting from your headphones, right?”

“So what?” Nico retorts, and Will cringes, because he had not meant it as an insult, only as an icebreaker. “It’s a good song. And everyone here is going to have a one night stand anyway, so it fits.”

Will smiles. Nico smiles back. “How’s your head doing?”

“It was fine. It is fine. It always will be fine.”

“You being knocked out for a solid half hour begs to differ.”

“Stop worrying about me Will, go enjoy the party. I’m sure there’s some girl who’s dying to hook up with you. You know, in the true spirit of Thnks fr th Mmrs.”

Will starts laughing, he can’t help it. Because, although he knew not many people knew what type of people he was really into, he’d never even thought that the one person he’d been thinking about for weeks wouldn’t know the most important thing for him to know (you know, besides the fact that Will wants to kiss him senseless in the corner he’s currently brooding in, but it’s all about baby steps, really).

“Uh, yeah, that would be kind of hard, seeing as they all know I’m not really that attracted to them.”

Nico does not look amused. Warning lights go off in Will’s head. “You’re serious…? You…? I don’t believe it.”

“Just ask the host of this lovely party. She, unfortunately, was one of the first to know.”

“You mean the host who is currently trying to talk Reyna Ramirez-Arellano into having a threesome with her and Dakota?”

Will scratches behind his ear. “Yeah, that would be the one. She was totally understanding about the whole thing… You know… after she broke a few vases and stuff.”

“You’re serious?”

“Deadly.”

“But… everyone at this school is so cool about it with you…”

Will is about to answer with a “To be fair, not many of them actually know I exist.”, but Nico cuts him off with the end of his sentence: “that’s why I got that bloody lip and black eye.”

Will can feel his eyes go wide. He didn’t know either of the two things Nico was telling him with the end of that sentence. “Who did it?”

“It doesn’t matter. Its not like you can do anything about it anyway.” He sounds melancholy and slightly hopeless, but then his tone changes and his eyes take on this light that Will has never seen them have before. “I do have to ask, though, if you’re not looking to hook up with someone, then why have you been standing under the mistletoe for the past five minutes?”

“I have?” Will asks, and then looks up. “I guess I didn’t notice.”

When he looks back, Nico is no longer leaning against the wall brooding.

“So.”

“So.”

Their first kiss is everything and more that Will ever wanted it to be, and he doesn’t even mind that Fall Out Boy is still blaring from the headphones around Nico’s neck.


End file.
